Review: Georgie, All Along

Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Georgie is living her best life as PA to an LA superstar, until boos decides to streamline her life and semi-retire. Now Georgie is homeless and jobless, so she decides to returns home to Darentville, Virginia to lick her wounds and help her BFF Bel, who begged her to come home only a few weeks earlier. Driving thousands of miles cross-country, on very little sleep with a car stuffed to the gills with plastic bags containing all her worldly possessions, Georgie feels like nothing has changed from her nineteen year-old self who left all those years ago. Then to add insult to injury when she tries to buy a couple of milkshakes at the local store she finds she has no money, giving the locals another chance to put her down and the very rude man in the line behind her the opportunity to grumble, and then pay for her drinks.

Helping Bel to unpack her junk room at the new house she and her husband have bought in anticipation of their first child, Georgie comes across an old diary which she and Bel wrote together, but less of a diary and more of an anticipation of what life at High School would be like, the thins they would do together. Georgie is mortified to realise that she didn't do any of those things and decides that this is her chance for a do-over, perhaps doing all these things will help her find her direction because it seems as though she still doesn't have a vocation, or even any inclining of what she wants to do next.

Moving into her parents' home while they are on one of their wacky roadtrips, Georgie is horrified when the grumpy guy from the shop lets himself into her parents' home accompanied by his big dog. Little does she know that her scatty parents offered to let Levi Fanning and his dog stay at their place while his home is being remodelled, and forgot to tell her when she said she was coming home.

Levi was the town's bad boy, when Georgie was at school there were all sorts of rumours about him, basically anything bad, he had done or was responsible for (a bit like the guy in the film Ten Things I Hate About You). He was also the older brother of Georgie's teenage crush who features very heavily in her diary. Levi has cleaned up his act and is a responsible businessman now, but his parents, brother and sister no longer speak to him, which is a pity because the family owns and runs a large up-market hotel where he could otherwise have stayed during the remodel.

Although Levi might have scared her initially, Georgie can't force him to sleep in his truck, or put his dog in doggy day-care, especially after he is mauled by a much smaller dog so she agrees to share the house with Levi. In return, Levi offers to help her with her diary to-do list, especially since Bel being so heavily pregnant means she can't do several things on the list. Can these two lost souls find redemption together?

I like Kate Clayborn, I really enjoyed her Chance in a Lifetime trilogy about three friends who win the lottery, and I liked this too. Intelligent characters, a tightly woven plot, cutesy small town, lovely dog - what's not to like?

Recommended for those who like small-town romance, reluctant roommates and curmudgeonly heroes.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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